1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure is consistent with the field of scheduling classes, and specifically, to optimizing display of scheduling classes.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, students in schools and universities complained of monotonous, boring schedules where they had same classes every day of the week. For example, students would have Math, English, Social Studies, Science in same order Monday through Friday such that Math was always taught in the first period, English was always taught in the second period, Social Studies was always taught in the third period, and Science in the last period. Whatever the order, it was the same everyday of the week.
The problem with these types of schedules is not only that they are monotonous and boring but also that they do not bring out student's potentials. If a student performs particularly poorly at a particular time e.g., morning, then he or she might do poorly in Math because it is always the first scheduled class. Similarly, if the student is tired by the last class, he or she might do poorly in Science if it is always scheduled in the last period. That is, although the student might have a natural talent for Math and/or Science, he or she will do poorly because of the scheduled time for the class.
To resolve this problem, a number of schools begin to vary schedules from day to day. As time progresses, the scheduling became more and more complex. For example, a number of schools have implemented rotations. In these rotations, a number of days are specified such as days 1-8 110 depicted in FIG. 1. In this example, on Day 1, Catholic Social Deren is scheduled in the first period 111 as a first class; on Day 2, this class is scheduled in the second period 112 as a second class; on Day 3, this class is scheduled in the third period 113 as a third class, on Day 4, this class is the forth class 114, on Day 5, this class is the fifth class 115, and so on. Some days may skip this class, e.g., on Day 6, there is no Catholic Social Deren.
Also, some classes may require longer periods. For example, a lab for AP Chemistry may require more than the standard 45-50 minutes permitted for a class e.g., see AP Chemistry on Day 6 121. In other words, schools also vary the time for each class. For example, one day, the class may be 45 minutes and yet on another day, this same class may last an hour. As a result, if a teacher is scheduling a test, the teacher can schedule the test for the longer period.
Furthermore, some days may be half days and others may end early or start late for special assemblies, etc. adding additional complications to an already hard to follow schedule. These types of days may further be designated by a letter, e.g., Day 1m (m for morning classes only for example) or Day 2s (s for shorter classes) and so on.
Although this type of scheduling provides the much needed variety for students and teachers, it is difficult to follow. Especially, if a student likes to do homework in school or review for a test e.g., during lunch, he or she needs to know the exact scheduling/order of classes each day. This is rather complicated, as the student first needs to determine the number of the day in a cycle, then the type of day it is (half day, special assembly day, etc), and then look at the schedule for this day, e.g., schedule for Day 2. With so many steps, errors are likely.